The Atlas of Early Modern Wildlife

This file is the basis of The Atlas of Early Modern Wildlife (Pelagic Publishing, 2023). It includes thousands of historical records of wildlife from Britain and Ireland. The records have been extracted from over 400 primary texts (esp. books) written between the year 1519 CE and the year 1772 CE.

This version of the database includes a single table with over 11,000 rows. Each row provides all the locations where a single species was listed in a single source, so that for example one record lists that the Swordfish (Xiphias gladius) was recorded as present on Shetland in an early modern source called Atlas Maior, and another record labelled lists that the Gannet (Morus bassanus) was recorded as present on both Godrevy Island and Bass Rock in the Itineraries of John Ray. Identifying species and locations in older texts is complicated and where the record is uncertain, this is indicated by adding ?s in the "Present?" field.

Explanation for third version of the Atlas of Early Modern Wildlife Database (December 2025).
Over the last year I have been making many visits to county archives, local collections and national libraries. These include:
The Bodleian Library, Bristol Archives, the British Library, Essex Record Office, the Institute for Historical Research, Lancashire Archives, National Archives, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales, North East Wales Archives, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Archives, Shropshire Archives, Wiltshire & Swindon Archives, and MORE. I've tried to go through all of the main natural history texts, local descriptions and travelogues held by each institution. This has resulted in many more incidental records of wildlife. The number of travelogues in particular consulted was increased through use of Robin Gard's The Observant Traveller, which has an appendix listing early travel sources.
Please consult previous versions of this dataset for further history.

Finding all these records required years of work. If you are a researcher and find additional sources here, please cite this database or the parent publication (which includes in-depth analysis and historical distribution maps) - see link at bottom of page:
Raye, L. (2023) The Atlas of Early Modern Wildlife, London, Pelagic Publishing.